by Jerome du Bois
Two weeks ago some students, parents, teachers and administrators at West Seattle High School performed a social ambush on a Marine Corp Major, a veteran of Iraq. Both Sound Politics and Michelle Malkin have covered it well, and I was about to take the Major's eight questions and concerns and run down their present status. But rereading Principal Susan Dersé's juking and jiving, her clogged ambivalent verbiage, as well as the stale bureaucratese of the Seattle School Board, reminded me too much of the cowardly side-stepping we got in emails from Christine Schild of the Scottsdale Unified School District.
So here I'm going to quote the Major's letter in full, then point the reader to the relevant posts by Sound Politics and Michelle Malkin. When the reader returns, I'm going to briefly touch on three things: (1) social ambush as a widespread tactic of the empty-headed left, (2) some insights gleaned from a radio interview with the student organizer, who, though dumb as a bag of hammers, manages to show his cruelty, and (3) the abysmally low test scores of West Seattle High students as a partial explanation for their nasty, brutish behavior.
Before we continue, though, a couple of notes: These WSH students call themselves Students Take A Stand, yet only one has come forward. Not one other student, much less a parent, teacher, staff member, who took part in the ambush, or supports this group, has proudly stepped forward to defend their work. Why not? What's it going to be --Students Take A Dump? Students Take Off Running? Step up!
Finally, a local note: tonight the Scottsdale Unified School Board meets at Coronado High School. We've listed some questions elsewhere about Islam in Arizona schools (in our four-part series). We urge concerned parents to take this list to that meeting and ask these questions. (You might also want to check the size of the wedge of Intelligent Design.) Thanks.
[Update: Oops. I got my date wrong. The SUSD meeting is 7 PM tonight, Tuesday, March 29, 2005, at Coronado High School in Scottsdale.]
From Sound Politics:
This is a letter written by Major Thomas to the school board.
March 14, 2005
Seattle Public Schools
Attn: School Board & Superintendent
P.O. Box 34165
Seattle, WA 98124-1165
Dear Seattle School Board and Superintendent:
It is with extreme and heartfelt regret, anger and utter dismay that I find myself having to write this letter to your attention given my family’s deep personal ties to West Seattle High School.
This past Friday afternoon, March 11, 2005 I served as one of a panel of guest speakers at the West Seattle High School Theater after having been invited to West Seattle High School by a student, Mr. Ben Doty, via referral from Ms. Nadine Gulit of Operation Support Our Troops. I served as one of a panel of approximately seven guest speakers at the West Seattle High School Theater. The topic on which I was invited to speak was my experience as a combat veteran of the war in Iraq. I was informed that I would have an opportunity to speak to students, along with other veterans as part of an objective forum with both anti-war and pro-troops sentiments. It was my understanding the purpose of this event was to provide students of West Seattle High School with an opportunity to hear from people with varied opinions on the war. I am pleased that my remarks were welcomed by the student audience. The panel of guests, though varied in opinion, was most professional in all aspects of a disagreeable but respectful discourse.
Why, then, am I writing to you? Upon entering the theater at 12:30 PM, approximately 15 minutes prior to the event, I was taken aback by what I witnessed. As I stood there in my Marine Corps Dress Blue uniform, there before me stood numerous kids running around in sloppily dressed and ill-fitted helmets and military fatigues with utter disrespect for the symbols and uniforms of the U.S. military. The walls were covered in camouflaged netting and the stage was covered with approximately twenty white, life-sized cut-out patterns in the shape of dead women and children, all of which were splattered in red-paint to depict human blood. Onstage, children were kneeling and weeping while dressed in ill-fitted Arabic headdress with white-faced masks similarly covered in red paint to depict human blood. At a podium, children were reading a monologue of how U.S. troops were killing civilians and shooting at women and children. Moreover, several grown adults were standing on stage in bright orange jump-suits, with black bags on and off their heads, some bound and tied, and some banging symbols and gongs in a crude depiction of what I believe were their efforts to depict victims of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse episode.
Within the auditorium, numerous adults appeared to have been supervising this behavior and children were literally running amok. [1] What is going on in your classrooms and auditoriums? [2] Who supervised this program? [3] Who are these grown adults dressed as prisoners and performing such the attics on the stage of our public schools? [4] Since when has it become Seattle School Board policy to take an official anti-troops position and declare returning combat veterans from Iraq such as myself as killers of innocent women and children as if this war were some sick sport. As an Iraq war veteran I am outraged by what I witnessed going on at West Seattle High School!
My fellow veterans and I were immediately made to feel unwelcome by these organizers as if each of us were the devil himself; indiscriminate killers and enemies of our own community. To someone's credit, all of this nonsense was ceased less than one minute prior to the curtain going up. I can only assume someone realized how sickly embarrassing this would be for the school district. However, this last minute cover-up does not excuse what was going on and it appears to have been going on for quite sometime given the obviously lengthy art and script preparation developed for this event. I and the other veterans from Afghanistan, the Balkans and Ms. Gulit from Operation Support Our Troops were all witness to this ugly spectacle along with over 40 or so people that appeared to be willingly participating in this depravity.
I have served my country honorably for nearly 13 years all around this globe. I have fought on the battlefield in Iraq, lost good friends dead and wounded in this conflict and I will not sit back and allow our Seattle school district to shame or sully the name, reputation and good name of our military and our returning veterans. I will not tolerate an ill-administered school bureaucracy that seeks to sanction, condone, advocate or chaperon a vile position that Americas military men and women are somehow blood thirsty, indiscriminate murderers, executioners or war criminals.
[5] I am requesting a meeting with your board as soon as possible to explain and address this issue and [6] a letter should be written to the parents of West Seattle High School students making them aware of Fridays events explaining how and why it occurred. [7] A full accounting of those teachers, counselors, parents, groups and adults that were allowed preferential access on to the campus to advocate for this particular position, use school facilities and develop these abhorrent materials is expected immediately. [8] Lastly a public letter of apology is due the Seattle community with apologetic cordiality extended to the returning Iraq war veterans of this community for the shameful antics going on in our public schools with an assurance that this sort of sick nonsense will not be condoned or tolerated in Seattle public schools now or ever.
Sincerely,
Terry Thomas
Major, USMCR
Combat Veteran– Operation Iraqi Freedom
P.O. Box 31406
Seattle, WA 98103
Superintendent (206)252-0100 Raj Manhas
rsmanhas@seattleschools.org
Communications Director (206)252-0200 Peter Daniels
wpdaniels@seattleschools.org
School Board MemberDistrict 1 (206)252-0052 Sally Soriano
sally.soriano@seattleschools.org
School Board MemberDistrict 2 (206)252-0031 Darlene Flynn
darlene.flynn@seattleschools.org
School Board MemberDistrict 3 (206)729-3202 Brita Butler-Wall
brita.butler-wall@seattleschools.org
School Board MemberDistrict 4 (206)297-4533 Dick Lilly
dick.lilly@seattleschools.org
School Board MemberDistrict 5 (206)720-3303 Mary Bass
mary.bass@seattleschools.org
School Board MemberDistrict 6 (206)933-5338 Irene Stewart irene.stewart@seattleschools.org
School Board MemberDistrict 7 (206)760-4747 Jan Kumasaka jan.kumasaka@seattleschools.org
West Seattle High School Principal (206) 252-8800 Susan Derse scderse@seattleschools.org
[Please, reader, email them all!]
I have handily numbered the Major's questions, concerns and demands. He meets with the School Board up there today, so maybe we'll have more news in the next couple of days, but I doubt he'll get much satisfaction. These people are like greasy bbs or blobs of mercury. Sound Politics has posted about it here, here, and here (wherein the Principal "replies"). And Michelle Malkin here, here, and here.
Back to the ambush: these people knew exactly what, how, where, and why they were doing. No matter how it may be explained later, the act itself is the most important thing. Like pouring blood on Selective Service files, indelibly staining and ruining them, exposing the Major to this filth --to make him take it, to make him share their stink, as I've written elsewhere-- is crucial. So is deception, of course. The major would certainly have not shown up if he had known what he would face. They knew it, and they took advantage of the venue. That's the third crucial criterion for the new ambushers. When a teacher --4th Grade, 10th Grade, professor in a university-- uses a captive audience to promote a political agenda, that's an ambush.
When Ward Churchill and his crew blocked a Columbus Day Parade, they were entirely dependent on the existence of the Parade. Nobody would care if they marched or demonstrated elsewhere; there would be nothing to block. Nobody would be inconvenienced. Nobody would have to stand there and take it. The whole point is disruption of someone else's legally-organized energy. (Ward Churchill's deepest dream is to come galloping up over the rise in the moonlit night, leading his murderous crew, screaming like a banshee and shaking his lethal long lance at the peaceful circle of startled settlers.)
Here in Phoenix last December an America-hating pendejo professor named John Jota Leaños and his crew of sycophantic student zombies pasted up his Pat Tillman posters on private buildings downtown during the First Friday Artwalk. Again, he was entirely dependent on energy organized for other reasons. On his own, he couldn't bring that many people together in a million years. He loves ambush. He requires it. He teaches a class on it. It's "Interventionist art," don't you know. (Well, as I've let him know before, he comes on my private property, he'll have blood in his eyes.)
That's why a lot of these hard leftists loved 9/11 --it was the ultimate ambush.
Smearing, lying, slandering, and subverting civil behavior. These are some of the new academic standards I refer to in the title. As for the product of this system, the student "leader" of the ambush (Ben Doty? I'm not sure) was interviewed on Seattle radio. I don't have a transcript, but a couple of commenters on Sound Politics listened to it and relay some, to me, revealing information about the workings of this young man's "mind."
Chuck Miller posted this on March 16:
If you listened to the interview, as I did, then you would know TEACHERS WERE INVOLVED in the entire process. TEACHERS gave advice and input and that was followed and incorporated into the "skit". That's straight from the lead student organizer who was being interviewed.
This student "leader" was also about as eloquent as one might expect from a student body with the low test scores Matt posted. When asked what sources students drew on for their depictions of American soldiers killing women and children he drew a complete blank. Worse was what he said on his own, without prompting --that they wanted to set a mood for people coming in to think and be receptive, so they knew they had to be provocative. Well, which is it laddie? Do you want the audience contemplative or provoked? Do you know the difference? Plainly he does not.
Worse than being sponsored by the teachers union, this was sponsored, aided, abetted and guided, by teachers themselves.
Shame on these teachers --and shame on their ignorant defenders as well.
All of whom remain to be named later. So the kid's an idiot. But it's worse than that. Commenter Janet S. posted, on the same day:
I listened to an interview of the student who was heading this up. Every time he was caught in an inconsistancy, he changed his story. Then he resorted to saying that Major Thomas didn't object to the presentation while standing there. He seemed to think this meant it was all okay.
That's exactly what that young man thinks, and worse. That's what's scary. Again, he wants him to take it. He's like a animal or cyborg with extremely limited empathic abilities, but well-developed sadistic ones. The major is scarcely human for him, much less a striking, shining figure of human dignity and quiet pride, all brass and piping and polish, and displaying the best in civilized behavior.
But this punk wants his reaction shot. He wants his man to wince, or growl, or lose it. He wants degradation, he wants to pull the major down into the psychological shithole he lives in. And that applies to every other cowardly student and parent and teacher and staff member, because there hasn't been a single written public signed apology by anyone involved in this disgrace. Because they're proud of it, they'll do it again, and then go run and hide again.
Finally, I'm grateful that Matt Rosenberg over at Sound Politics did some digging into WSH test scores. His findings:
A post-forum writing assignment on the war would have been a good idea, as opposed to politicized theatrics beforehand. As the State Superintendent of Public Instruction reports, only one-third of the West Seattle High School 10th graders tested last school year could pass all three mandatory sections (reading, writing, math) of the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL); which will be required for graduation as of 2008.
Then again, considering the move to broaden the use of "alternatives" to the WASL for students who can't pass, maybe guerilla theatre projects will become part of some "essential academic mastery" project portfolio for the many WSH students who can't hack the onerous "pen and paper" test due to the low "cultural competency" of the test designers.
Forty-one percent of WSH 10th graders failed the 03-04 WASL reading test; 51 percent failed writing; 60 percent failed math; 73 percent failed science.
But they can bang a gong with their daddy to make the soldier feel ashamed.
Posted by Jerome at March 28, 2005 02:00 PM | TrackBack